The Dusty Plasma Laboratory (DPL) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County (UMBC) is now finalizing the design and fabricating components for
ALPHA, a high-field Bitter-type electromagnet to be used for magnetized
dusty plasma experiments. When the system is complete, ALPHA will be
programmable to dynamically increase or decrease fields of up to 10 T for
nominally 10 seconds and up to several minutes. The magnet dimensions as
well as power and cooling requirements were optimized according to a genetic
algorithm developed in the DPL [1]. The cooling channel pattern design was
obtained using an analytic methodology also developed in the DPL [2]. The
final design parameters as well as the predicted performance characteristics
of the magnetic core, the water cooling shell, and the DC power source are
presented. [1] E. M. Bates, W. J. Birmingham, and C. A. Romero-Talamas. IEEE
Trans. Magn. 53, 7200310 (2017): [2] W. J. Birmingham, E. M. Bates, and C.
A. Romero-Talamas, J. Thermal Sci. Engr. Appl. 8, 021008 (2015)

To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2017.DPP.CP11.16